re: #98 Lidane

From the No Shit, Sherlock files—

Remember when the Marines were sent to the Texas border?

Evening, May 20, 1997, on a rocky ridge overlooking Polvo Crossing near tiny Redford, Texas, 215 miles southeast of El Paso: four Marines have been tasked to help the border patrol watch for drug smugglers along the Rio Grande. But they have absolutely no knowledge or training about the people who live in this region.

They spot a young man with a rifle. He spots them. He’s herding goats. The heavily camouflaged Marines don’t look like law enforcement agents. Perhaps he thinks they’re goat rustlers. He fires his .22 at them. The Marines take him out with a single shot from an M-16.

(Soundbite of a gunshot)

BURNETT: The events of that day have become a mythic tragedy in the borderlands. Ballads have been written about it, a movie, too. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is loosely based on the murder of Ezekiel Hernandez Jr.